Panitz v. Webb

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit for personal injuries growing out of an automobile accident, and is here for the second time on appeal. The former appeal was beard and decided during the October Term, 1925, and the decision is reported in 149 Md. 75 . On the second trial the plaintiff again obtained a verdict and this appeal is from the judgment on that verdict.

The accident occurred at about six o’clock on the evening of November 16th, 1923, at the northeast comer of North Avenue and Linden Avenue, Baltimore. Mrs. Gustave B. Webb, plaintiff, testified that she got off a westbound North Avenue car at Linden Avenue and walked to the north side of North Avenue, and waited at the corner on the east side of Linden Avenue until a traffic officer stationed at the intersection of those avenues gave the signal to cross Linden Avenue; that she then glanced to the left “and I saw no cars and I didn’t bear any born” and “I then started to cross * * *. I bad taken two or three strides when I beard some one shout, look out there’; simultaneously I got an awful blow in the back towards my left side.” “Q. How far were you thrown, do you recollect? A. Well, at the time I said I thought it was twelve or fifteen feet.” She further testified that she was struck by the front of defendant’s car.

A nurse testified that there was an indentation large enough to put her fist in right at the base of the spine a little ⁶⁴¹ towards the left. The doctor who was called in after the accident said he found a dent in the back part of her left hip where the large muscles are, where the muscles had been broken apart, and that the dent could not have been caused by a body coming in contact with a flat surface, and that it would require some pointed part to' cause the dent; that in his opinion the injury was a permanent one. Isidor Panitz, defendant, testified that he and his brother were riding in his car on North Avenue, having entered said avenue from Mt. Royal Avenue; that his chauffeur, named Jerome, was driving; “When we got to Linden Avenue the traffic officer was on the corner and the' semaphore read, ‘stop/ and we stopped the car.

We stood there for a while, when the officer turned the sign to gn, and he motioned with his hand. We started all over again in first gear, turning the corner very slow into Linden Avenue. We passed the corner and when we got just a little above that corner — I sat to the right of the car and my brother was sitting next to me — I saw a lady on the sidewalk near to the curb standing still, and suddenly she began in a hurried way to run across the street. The front of the car had passed the lady; she was almost on top1 of me sitting in the rear of the car.

She was so close that I was almost tempted to shove her back from running into us, but I was afraid I would hurt the lady by shoving her back. Instead I hollered to the chauffeur, ‘Jerome, quick, stop the car/ and he did instantly. * * The witness further testified that when he stopped, plaintiff was back of the car; that the car stopped within three feet; that the car was going about as fast as a man would walk — very slow, about three or four miles an hour; that the chauffeur blew his horn when he turned; that the chauffeur stopped to wait for the signal at the regular place for cars to stop going west, back of the white lines there. The testimony of the brother and the chauffeur was substantially the same as that of defendant. All said the car was going at about three or four miles and that the horn was blown.

The chauffeur said he blew it “at the beginning of ⁶⁴² the turn before he came across the crossing and before he actually got into Linden Avenue”; that he did not start to make the turn until the sign to go was given. At the